You Can Watch The Royal Botanic Gardens' Rarest Plant Prepare to Flower Via This Round-the-Clock Live Feed
As Sydney waits for this stinky plant to unfurl its petals for the first time in 15 years, thousands of floral fans are following its progress online.
Last week, horticulturalists at the Royal Botanic Gardens announced that one of its rarest plants was preparing to flower for the first time in 15 years. The appropriately named corpse flower, due to its famously rancid odour, has the largest flower of any plant in the world, but it only blooms for 24-hours once every several years. The last time this spectacle was seen in the Harbour City was back in 2010.
While it's impossible to predict exactly when the plant — nicknamed Putricia — will bloom, experts at the Gardens suggested last week that the day could be imminent. However, more than seven days on, Putricia has yet to open, leaving Sydneysiders on tenterhooks.
Since the window of time to behold this floral wonder is so fleeting, a live stream via YouTube has been keeping Sydneysiders in their thousands up to date with the latest developments. A dramatic backdrop featuring tropical foliage, theatrical smoke and a velvet curtain has been added to a public viewing area, where the corpse flower, also known as the Bunga Bangkai in the plant's native Indonesia, is currently on display.
Other than its extraordinary size, the Corpse Flower is most famous of its repulsive stench, which it uses to attract insect pollinators. Describing the plant's extraordinary stench, the Royal Botanic Gardens Manager of Volunteer Programs, Paul Nicholson, said: "If you've got some wet teenage socks, throw that into a blender, then you get some cat food you've left out in the sun, whack that in your blender, and then get some day old vomit. Put that in the blender, blend it all up, rip the lid off. That's the kind of smell you're getting."
Putricia the Corpse Flower is on display to the public at the Royal Botanic Gardens now. Head to the Royal Botanic Gardens website for more details.
